This is Mazon Monday post #135. What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:[email protected]. Thanks!
-----------------------------------------------------
The collection of John and Lucy McLuckie, who we've covered a few times in Throwback Thursday #55, Throwback Thursday #104, and Flashback Friday #29, was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C in 1990. It was a very valuable collection of over 2,500 Mazon Creek fossils. It was collected for many years by both John and his wife Lucy. John started collecting during the 1930's when he worked in the strip mines around Coal City, Braidwood, and Wilmington, IL. Honorary ESCONI members, John collected up until his death in 1963 at age 69, while Lucy added to the collection until her death in 1982 at age 84.
Lucy McLuckie in front of their fossil collection
John McLuckie at "George Langford Night" in 1958
John and Lucy at the 1958 Combined Clubs Day in Braidwood
The McLuckies are part of a select group with four species named for them - Caulopteris mcluckie, Curculioides mcluckei, Eophrymus mcluckii, and Mcluckiepteron luciae. The last one is a breathtaking insect wing described by Eugene Richardson in 1956. Eophrymus mcluckii is a spider.
The September 1990 edition of the ESCONI newsletter has a very nice article describing the donation, which has provided priceless information for researcher over the years.
VALUABLE COLLECTION DONATED TO SMITHSONIAN
One of the finest private collections of over 2,500 coal age fossils, has been donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., by Bull Shoals, Arkansas residents, Malcolm and Dorothy McLuckie, son and daughter-in law of the collectors, the late John M. and Lucy McLuckie.
"We thought this would be the greatest memorial we could ever give Mom and Dad. It was their hobby. They loved it and lived it. They made wonderful friends collecting and studying these fossils, and having them on display at the Smithsonian where people from all over can enjoy them would make Mom and Dad very happy. When Mom died we talked to Fred Collier of the Smithsonian and he expressed a desire to have the collection. They promised the collection would never be separated and always remain at the Smith sonian" said Malcolm.
Because many of the specimens will be on display, the collection will bring the Mazon Creek fossils to the attention of the public in the United States and the world. Five specimens in the collection were researched and these five have been named in honor of the collectors. One is a fossil spider is called Eophrymus Mcluckii. Another is a dragon fly wing named Mcluckiepteron Luciae, which in Latin means Lucy McLuckie's wing.
Plant fossils dominate the collection, reflecting the abundant fern and forest growth of the ancient Pennsylvanian Period tropical forest. Included are imprints of seed, cones, fern branches with needlelike leaves and fossilized bark of scale trees that grew 100 feet high. Also are unusual fossilized spiders and rare examples of Pennsyl vanian period sea life, including clams, horseshoe crabs, trilobites and shark teeth.
John McLuckie had to quit school at the age of 11 and went to work in the coal mines driving mules. This was in the early 1900's. He decided he wanted to do more than drive mules and got a job in the strip mines. Eventually he became an operator of one of the first dragline excatating machines ( a machine with a large bucket that could remove six cubic yards per scoop) for Northern Illinois Coal Co's strip-mining operation near Coal City.
As the machine tore through the ground, it occasionally turned up nodules. McLuckie noticed people collecting and breaking open these nodules. Upon examination, he found they contained imprints of ancient ferns and leaves.
More than 300 million years ago (Pennsylvanian Period) the northern Illinois landscape was covered with lush swamp forests, part of an extensive deltaic river system empty ing into an ancient sea. As the sea level rose and flooded the costal peat swamps, plants and animals living in the Mazon Creek area were trapped and buried in sand and silt. Most of the organic matter in the swamps was compacted into coal beds, covered by layers of sandstone and shale. But in the shale, individual plants and animals were preserved as fossils in nodules of mineral matter.
Fred Thompson, a Harvard paleontologist, who visited the site to search for fossils, asked "How can you work around this and not be interested?" So--John became interested. John McLuckie started collecting fossils in the 1930's. He searched the mine spoil heaps on his lunch hour and before work. Soon his wife Lucy joined her husband in the search for fossils, along with their children.
"Mom soon became a better researcher than Dad," Malcolm said. Interested in learning more about their finds the McLuckies read every book they could find on coal-swamp fossils. They corresponded with and loaned their specimens to paleontologist at the Field Museum and Harvard University and other major scientific institutions.
They soon became experts on the Mazon Creek fossils and often were called on to help answer questions from museums, schools, etc. "They started with nothing, they had nothing. Mom dropped out of school in 8th grade and Dad when he was 11. They self trained themselves to become experts on the Mazon Creek fossils, and they were consider ed the most knowledgeable in their field" said McLuckie.
As the fame of their fossil finds spread, scientists, geology students and amateur rock hounds from all over the world began showing up at the McLuckies, wanting to talk with them and see the collection. It was not unusual for buses to be parked in front of the home with a class of geology students down in the basement and the McLuckies lecturing.
John McLuckie died on March 10, 1963, at age 69. Lucy continued to collect and study fossils until her death on February 13, 1982, at the age of 84.
The coal mines which originated these fossils are now closed and spoil heaps are covered over. It has become difficult for collectors to gain access to prospect the Mazon Creek for fossils. Consequently, the McLuckie collection will prove invaluable to scientists and researchers in their quest to understand the ancient Pennsylvanian Forest.
From the Baxter Bulletin 7/20/90 Mountain Home, Ark. submitted by Howard and Olive Knight
